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rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened, on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be
decomposition.
The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the
expiration of this term it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; - -- but, alas! how fearful a shock
awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some
white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded
shroud.
A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived within two days after her entombment; that her
struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the floor, where it was so broken as to
permit her escape. A lamp which had been accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it
might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps which led down into the
dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which, it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest
attention by striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through
sheer terror; and, in failing, her shroud became entangled in some iron -- work which projected interiorly.
Thus she remained, and thus she rotted, erect.
In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France, attended with circumstances which go far to
warrant the assertion that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the story was a Mademoiselle
Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among her
numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or journalist of Paris. His talents and general
amiability had recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by whom he seems to have been truly beloved;
but her pride of birth decided her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Renelle, a banker and a
diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman neglected, and, perhaps, even more
positively ill-treated her. Having passed with him some wretched years, she died, - -- at least her condition so
closely resembled death as to deceive every one who saw her. She was buried - -- not in a vault, but in an
ordinary grave in the village of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed by the memory of a
profound attachment, the lover journeys from the capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with
the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the
grave. At midnight he unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the hair, when he is arrested
by the unclosing of the beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality had not altogether
departed, and she was aroused by the caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for
death. He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful restoratives
suggested by no little medical learning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her preserver. She remained with
him until, by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's heart was not adamant, and
this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her
husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward,
the two returned to France, in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady's appearance that her
friends would be unable to recognize her. They were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur
Renelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal
Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 92
sustained her in her resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the long lapse of years, had
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